Council gives initial approval to Anderson city budget

Anderson City Manager John Moore briefly explains the proposed 2011-2012 city budget of $48.7 million and council members give initial approval for the budget.

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Anderson Mayor Terence Roberts, right, and council member Tony Stewart sit during a city council meeting Monday.

ANDERSON - Anderson City Council members gave initial approval Monday to what city manager John Moore called a mirror of last year's budget.

"If we could have adopted a two-year budget last year, we would have," Moore said. "And this would be it."

The 2011-12 budget for the city is $48.7 million, $25,000 less than the current budget and similar in almost every way.

There are no tax increases.

Water and sewer fees will rise by 7 percent, as the last part of a four-year rate increase goes into effect.

The city expects to bring in slightly more property tax revenue than the previous budget year and more federal funding.

But every other revenue source (including fines and forfeitures, state funding, recreation fees and permits) is anticipated to end up bringing in less than the current budget.

The council will need to approve the budget in one more meeting before it becomes final. The council meets next on June 27.

More than half a million dollars was freed up in the proposed budget after the city decided to walk away from its swim center, which had been subsidized by the city by hundreds of thousands a year.

Much of that money was set aside for a $529,192 contingency fund. Moore said council members would have to decide how to use that money. A contingency fund of $20,000 was created in the 2010-11 budget; such a fund did not exist in previous budgets.

The new proposed budget would increase the fire department's funding by more than 10 percent (an extra $353,240) using federal grant money to pay for nine new firefighters. The city attorney's budget was decreased by almost $50,000 because more work would be handled by the staff lawyer and city human resources workers, Moore said.

Several items were shuffled in the budget, with little or no net difference other than to record-keepers. For example, building security ($178,517) was moved to its own line item instead of being listed as a City Hall expense and the budget for courts grew by $93,735 because fine and fee collectors were moved from reporting to the police chief to reporting to the city's chief judge.

The city maintains 10 funds, totaling the $48.7 million. Ninety percent of that money goes into three areas: general fund ($25 million), sewer fund ($10.3 million) and water fund ($8.2 million).

The general fund includes police, public works, fire, City Hall, debt service, recreation and day-to-day operations.

The rest of the city's budget goes toward a hospitality fee (a 2 percent fee on prepared food and drinks in the city) fund of $1.8 million, a community development fund of $1.2 million, a stormwater fund of $924,500, a transit fund of $912,190, an endowment fund of $120,000, an accommodations tax fund of $87,000 and a perpetual care fund of $40,000.